


Love Letters to Dead Gods

by Sleigh



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
Genre: Blood, Bruises, Choking, M/M, Minor Character Death, Nightmares, Rough Sex, Self-Hatred, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-21 19:03:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8256997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sleigh/pseuds/Sleigh
Summary: "Maybe Sheffield always had his sights set on divinity. Maybe O’Brien was dumb for only setting his sights on the brilliant boy with the undecipherable smile."





	

**i.**

Sheffield’s fingers across his shoulder feel like static, like every single touch is a tiny spark. “Don’t touch me,” O’Brien says. He tries to continue typing, but he mis-spells ‘lipoprotein lipase’ three times.

 Sheffield raises his hands, shrugs. “Sorry, sorry.” He keeps walking, but when O’Brien peeks behind his hair to steal a glance at him, Sheffield is looking back. He cracks a smile and O’Brien looks away, stares hard at the computer screen. He feels a tension headache blooming in his forehead. _That’s what Sheffield is_ , he thinks. _A walking tension headache._

**ii.**

 O’Brien is half-way through a sentence in their meeting when he makes the mistake of looking in Sheffield’s direction. Sheffield is staring back at him, eyebrows raised, then slowly licks his upper lip. O’Brien’s words die in his throat, and all that comes out is a choking sound, followed by silence.

 Sheffield grins. “Dr. O’Brien? You were saying?”

 O’Brien wants to kick his chair out from under him. He wants to punch him in the jaw. He wants to fuck him over his desk, wants to hear his name on Sheffield’s lips, wants to hear him beg.

“I was saying,” O’Brien says, a twinge of malice in his voice. “If we…” He’s lost his train of thought. He swallows, takes a breath. He can’t even remember what they were talking about.

“Well, if you have nothing else to say,” Sheffield grins at O’Brien. “There’s some things I’d like to talk about.”

O’Brien doesn’t argue, doesn’t say a word. He keeps thinking of Sheffield on his knees. He keeps thinking of Sheffield’s hands around his neck.  


**iii.**

“Do you remember that time in college when--”

“No.”

Sheffield laughs. “...When we got drunk on new years?” He has his hands on O’Brien’s shoulders, his thumbs rolling in circles across the tension in O’Brien’s back. 

“No,” O’Brien repeats, glaring at the paperwork on his desk. He clicks his pen open and closed over and over. He imagines himself stabbing Sheffield in the head with it.

“I know you do. The grocery store champagne, the snow…” He leans close, so close O’Brien can feel his breath against his ear. “Do you remember when you kissed me?”

“Don’t you have work to do?” O’Brien says, his voice coming out like a growl. He feels the sensation of dropping in his stomach, like Sheffield just threw him off their old apartment, off the The Berkeley Library, into the snow. He’d rather be bleeding out in a snowdrift. He’d rather be anywhere than in this moment, than remembering the taste of alcohol in Sheffield’s mouth, the feel of Sheffield’s fingers brushing through his hair, the sound of Sheffield giggling the moment they pulled apart.

“Do you want to spend this new year together too?” O’Brien can’t see Sheffield, but he can nearly hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll let you kiss me again,” Sheffield whispers.

“Go fuck yourself,” O’Brien hisses, pulling his shoulders away from Sheffield, hunching over his desk. “Go do your fucking job.”

Sheffield laughs, but steps away. “My offer still stands,” he says.

**iv.**

He’s lonely, so fucking lonely. There’s no other way he could justify this. He wouldn’t work late all by himself if he had someone to be with. He wouldn’t let Sheffield close to him if he wasn’t feeling this desperation deep in his chest. He never would’ve let himself get this close, ever, under normal circumstances.

O’Brien doesn’t know how long he can keep kidding himself.

Sheffield tangles his fingers in O’Brien’s hair with one hand, claws at his back with the other. His back is pressed to the top of his desk, the top buttons of his dress shirt torn off and scattered on the floor, the zipper of his pants broken. He tilts his head back, laughter spilling out of his mouth. ‘This isn’t fucking funny,’ O’Brien wants to say. He says nothing.

“Is this how you are with everyone, or just me?” Sheffield asks between gasps. He looks up at O’Brien with a smirk on his face. “I never thought you’d be so rough.”

“Shut up,” O’Brien hisses. He refuses to give Sheffield the satisfaction of toning it down. He refuses to think about how long he’s wanted this, of the yearning simmering in his chest. He doesn’t want to think about how instead of feeling satisfied, all he feels is hatred for himself.

Sheffield looks radiant underneath him, just like he always imagined. He wants to choke him until he can’t smirk anymore. He wants to kiss him until he can’t breathe.

“C’mon,” Sheffield moans, digging his fingers into O’Brien’s back. “Fuck me harder.”

“Fuck you,” O’Brien says. He can’t think of anything else. His brain feels like white noise, like binary, like an empty room. The last thing he thinks of doing is giving Sheffield what he wants.

“Heat,” Sheffield groans. He looks up at O’Brien’s face, his dark eyes soft. In that moment, O’Brien can see the person he fell in love with, years ago. “Please. More.”

O’Brien feels like a burning building, flames creeping out of his insides and turning his skin to ash. He feels like he’s breathing smoke. He’d give anything, absolutely anything, to the glimpses of that person he sees in Sheffield.

**v.**

“Where did you put Sera’s bloodwork?”

The last thing O’Brien wants to do is call Sheffield, but he has no choice. He has to keep telling himself it’s for Sera sake. He just has to think of her chubby cheeks, her glossy eyes, and suddenly he feels like he can do anything.

“Hmm? Heat?”

There’s a shuffling noise in the background. A loud feminine moan. Panting.

“Wh--” O’Brien is speechless. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Argilla,” Sheffield says, something cold about his voice, like he’s reading a medicine label. “Can I--” He takes a sharp breath, laughs. “Can I call you back?”

“This is… this is way more important.” O’Brien barely manages to choke out the words, shock and embarrassment overwhelming him. There’s a tinge of hurt, somewhere deep in his chest. He wants to cut it out of his body like a tumor, burn it like garbage.

“Are you jealous?” Sheffield says, sudden excitement in his voice. Another loud moan comes through the speaker. “Do you want to join us?”

O’Brien presses the end button on his phone, then slams it hard on his desk, cracking the screen right down the middle. There’s anger bubbling like lava beneath his veins. There’s hurt, like a heavy weight in his chest, threatening to drag him down to the floor. He can nearly feel invisible hands strangling him, cutting off his air supply.

He thought he knew better.

**vi.**

“You know, you were so much nicer in college. What happened to you?”

O’Brien has been avoiding Sheffield for three days, but this time Sheffield sought him out. He keeps his hands moving, keeps typing so his hands don’t end up punching Sheffield in the face.

“You were a lot cuter, too,” Sheffield continues, ghosting his fingers down O’Brien’s back. “You smiled more. It was nice.”

“What do you want?” O’Brien mutters. He spells ‘choroideremia’ wrong twice.

“Just reminiscing.” Sheffield leans on the back of O’Brien’s chair, peeks over his shoulder at what he’s typing. “You know, I thought your naivety was part of what made you cute in college. But that part of you hasn’t changed a bit, has it?”

“What are you getting at?” O’Brien says, anger creeping into his tone. He stops typing and quickly swivels his chair around to face Sheffield, nearly knocking Sheffield off balance.

Sheffield smiles. He puts his hands over the arms of O’Brien’s chair and leans forward, pressing their lips together.

O’Brien doesn’t reciprocate, more on principle than anything else. He goes rigid, and doesn’t move when Sheffield moves away, leans past O’Brien’s lips and whispers in his ear.

“Do you really think I don’t know you love me?”

O’Brien’s eyes go wide and he stops breathing. He tries to will himself to say something, anything, but he can’t. Sheffield’s words feel like a bullet in his chest.

Sheffield steps back and stands up straight. He doesn’t look at O’Brien as he walks away, doesn’t say another word. He’s gone before O’Brien can take a breath, can reprimand himself over and over.

He hates himself, hates himself so fucking much.

**vii.**

O’Brien has the same nightmare twice. His hands around Sheffield’s throat as Sheffield chokes, glares up at him. Sheffield’s fingers pry at his hands, and O’Brien feels enough remorse to loosen his grip.

Sheffield takes a few deep breaths, holds onto O’Brien’s hands. “Are you going to kill me?” He asks.

There’’s always dark bruises on Sheffield’s neck, and O’Brien always wants to destroy himself for leaving those marks on him.

“Do it,” Sheffield taunts, placing O’Brien’s hands back on his neck. “Kill me. You know she’ll die if you don’t. Or can’t you even do that?”

He can never speak. He wants to yell, wants to apologize, wants to tell Sheffield he deserves worse. But his mouth is always glued shut.

Sheffield’s skin is always warm beneath his hands, his heartbeat heavy underneath O’Brien’s fingertips. He reaches up, touches Sheffield’s face.

“Pathetic,” Sheffield spits. He lifts a handgun, pointing it at the center of O’Brien’s forehead.

He always heard that if you die in a dream, you die in real life. He doesn’t know if it’s bullshit or if his days are numbered.

**viii.**

“You can’t push her any further.”

Sheffield rolls his eyes. They’ve already had this conversation at least a dozen times. “This again?”

O’Brien grabs the back of Sheffield’s desk chair and spins it, forcing Sheffield to face him. Sheffield doesn’t make eye contact, just sighs and stares at the wall.

“She can’t take any more. You’re going to kill her.” O’Brien tries to keep his tone even, but his voice rises higher with every word. He can’t stay calm when Sera’s involved. He can’t let her be in pain.

“This is about your sister, isn’t it?”

O’Brien instantly feels like he’s boiling over. He wants to shout at Sheffield, to yell at him to leave her out of this, but he knows he shouldn’t. There’s other people around.

Sheffield speaks before he can think of something calm to say. “You can’t cope with losing your sister, so you treat Sera as if she’s your new sister. There’s a word for it, it’s called--”

“Shut up,” O’Brien says. The last thing he wants to deal with his that condescending attitude. “It’s--”

“Look.” Sheffield sighs again, looks up at O’Brien. “This isn’t the ‘Best Friends Society.’ You’re not supposed to get attached to your test subjects. You’re being juvenile and unprofessional.”

O’Brien opens his mouth to speak, but Sheffield continues. “Frankly, I think you should be fired. But I guess Cuvier saw something redeemable about that bleeding heart of yours.” He stands up. “Do you get attached to lab rats, too?” He smiles. “Or--”

O’Brien punches Sheffield hard in the face before he can take a moment to breathe and calm himself down. Sheffield immediately falls to the floor, lifting a hand to cover the blood pouring out of his nose. Some part of O’Brien hopes it’s broken, but the other part of him is weighed down by immense guilt.

O’Brien can feel the eyes of everyone else in the room staring at him. He hesitates for a moment, wondering if he should say anything. He decides against it and hurries out of the room, before anyone can write him up or fire him.

As he steps outside he almost thinks he hears Sheffield laughing, but he decides it must be his mind playing tricks on him.

**ix.**

He bites down lightly on Sheffield’s lower lip and Sheffield moans into his mouth, pulling on his hair. He presses long kisses across Sheffield’s jaw, down his throat, across his collarbones. Here and there, he leaves little marks, like morse code that spells out ‘I love you’ all over Sheffield’s body.

O’Brien should be at his 8am English class, but all he cares about is half-asleep morning sex with his roommate.

“Heat,” Sheffield says, dragging his name out into a moan. “I’m going to be late for class.” He laughs.

“You can skip class for once in your life,” O’Brien murmurs against Sheffield’s hot skin, against the rapid heartbeat beneath his lips.

“Mmm.” Sheffield moans again, scraping his fingernails against the back of O’Brien’s neck as O’Brien pushes him farther into the bed. “But--”

O’Brien’s leaves kisses across his shoulder. Sheffield scrapes his fingers across his spine with every movement of O’Brien’s hips. “You’ll be fine, I promise.”

“What do you know?” Sheffield asks, a playful grin on his face.

“I’ve skipped class twice and it didn’t kill me.” Well, three times after today. O’Brien leans and kisses Sheffield’s lips, trailing his fingers down Sheffield’s chest, down his stomach, past his hips.

“You’re killing me,” Sheffield says, his voice breathy and light.

And suddenly, O’Brien remembers everything.

“What’s wrong?” Sheffield asks, as O’Brien suddenly freezes, becomes tense.

He’s not 20 years old, he’s not in college, he’s not this person anymore. He wonders, was Sheffield ever this person? Was the best friend in his memories ever real at all, or was he just the same facade that appears around Sera?

Suddenly, O’Brien feels sick.

“Heat?” Sheffield touches his face, concern crossing his features. “Are you okay?”

O’Brien wakes up in a cold sweat, an hour before his alarm is set to go off. He sits up, focuses on steadying his breathing. He feels dizzy and nauseated, but mostly he feels fear cutting through him like a knife.

**x.**

O’Brien always had a strong stomach around blood, but when it’s a pool of his own blood creeping across the floor, it’s a lot harder to stomach.

Sheffield’s eyes are cold when he crouches down in front of O’Brien. He smiles with no warmth behind it, holds O’Brien’s gun just barely out of his reach.

O’Brien knows he couldn’t pull the trigger, even if Sheffield handed the gun to him and told him to shoot.

“It didn’t have to be this way,” Sheffield says. “We could’ve been unstoppable. We could’ve been gods.”

Maybe Sheffield always had his sights set on divinity. Maybe O’Brien was dumb for only setting his sights on the brilliant boy with the undecipherable smile.

Sheffield sighs heavily, but O’Brien expects it’s mostly for drama. “Too bad.” He presses the muzzle of the gun to O’Brien’s forehead. It feels cold against his skin. “Want me to put you out of your misery?”

“I hate you,” O’Brien manages to hiss, barely able to spit the words out over the pain. He feels dizzy and weak, but he still has the energy to glare at Sheffield.

Sheffield smiles wide, like he’s just found out he won the lottery. “We both know that’s not true,” he murmurs.

O’Brien wants to argue, wants to scream. He doesn’t want to die like this.

Sheffield tilts his head to the side. He pulls the trigger.

**Author's Note:**

> \- OK Y'ALL.  
> \- Sheobu is so good I can't believe I haven't posted any fic yet. I was suuuper diehard into this ship for a few years and I came up with a TON of headcanons but I think most of the stuff here complies with canon and tc22? Besides like, the obvious canon divergence  
> \- Thanks as always to Jocelyn and Halle for being awesome beta readers  
> \- My anxiety is through the ROOF posting this so if you're going to go online and mock it at least do it privately where I won't see it lol  
> \- Good night and good sheobu


End file.
